January 31, 2019

A Brief History of Cobb on the Black Hand Side

Steve Fair, semi-nemesis observes the following:

Cobb since I've known him has always tried to make the case that black people are these emotional sheep who have been indoctrinated to believe that conservatives were primarily greedy selfish racists when they really are saintly paragons of freedom, liberty and free market capitalism. No matter how many times we see conservatives serve the interests of the top 1% at the expense of the average American, or increase the size of government, or engage in nation building on the other side of the world, admit to voter suppression, or demonize people of color, that's his story and he's sticking to it.

If I ever did that, I regret it fully. I have absolutely no interest in saying black people are anything at all. If I ever did, it may be some artifact of my upbringing in the Talented Tenth and my history of 'black leadership'. In 1986, I made it fully clear that I believed that black unity was a myth and that I would no longer support that idea. As such I acknowledged black diversity in every dimension. It was my reading of Drylongso finally in 1993 that compelled me to give up the idea of 'black leadership' itself, at which point I vowed never to second-guess black people or say 'black people should'. I do not. Nobody should ever assume that I have a plan for black people - or consequently that I really truly care who black people are or what they choose to do. My standard byline and bottom line is "Some people find it very difficult to accept that they don't own black people, that includes black people."

So then from that point on, all I had was my own black past, which was (and remains) very ideosyncratic. I'm from a small town called Black, and I moved out a long time ago. Nevertheless, I had retained some interest, in black anti-racist politics. So somewhere around 1997, I made that the focus of my writing, very much in league with the Race Traitor movement. So between 1993 and roughly 2001, I made it a project to develop a singular anti-racist praxis which worked along multicultural lines. Adam Serwer is at that place now. It was during that time that I played Boohab and built Boohab's Factotum and The Race Man's Home Companion.

The last time I paid attention to Reparations, I did so following the Harvard Law professor whose name I do not remember right now. But then I asked the question in economic terms. What happens if Reparations don't happen? I called it 'The Cost of Not'. Then 9/11 happened and everybody everywhere completely stopped talking about Reparations.

Somewhere around 2003, having lived comfortable in the upper middle class nearly a decade, my class prerogatives took over. While I was still interested in anti-racism, it was clear to me that the random racism of American life was a footnote in mine. All of my anti-racism was academic. So I started to think about real political power and question why more black Americans did not seek political leverage on both sides of the aisle, like ordinary rich people do year in and year out. So I became intrigued about the fate of rich and powerful black people and the possibilities of integrating the Republican Party. I started my new blog Cobb. But before that, I got together with some of the sharpest black thinkers online and put together Vision Circle. All of these remain, unedited and in my control. So there's that.

With Cobb, I went on a simple journey into the American Right that turned out to be quite complex. It was deeply enlightening. But blogging as a 'black Republican' grew tiresome after about 3 years. So I quit blogging altogether, and then came back with a new angle. Since I had formed The Conservative Brotherhood, and did some media stuff on NPR and TV One, Cobb the blog became famous. But it was still a persona I created for a specific purpose. That purpose was over pretty much around -- I don't know 2006?. I changed Cobb's subtitle to "curious, skeptical and analytical". And then finally to its present form "stoic observations". The end of my actual political agitation was in 2007 owing to my disgust with identity politics but I had won black blogger of the year that year.

I'm still most famous as Cobb, and that is what it is. What persists from the conservative conversion is an organic defense of Western Civilization from its first principles, something I started around 2005 or 06 when I got into Dan Carlin and Larry Arnn as introduced by Hugh Hewitt. At that moment in my life, history became more interesting than the present. Still I sought to understand what was happening to the liberal left I grew up in and why it seemed so wacky. I finally came to understand the difference between liberals and progressives as well as the travesty of multiculturalism's dysfunctional fueling of identity politics. So I read Orwell to understand why the Left considers itself more moral than the Right.

These days, especially after the crash of 2008 and the re-election of Obama I can't say what my interest in blackness is. I'm agnostic. It isn't a compelling subject for me. I think everything that group identity could possibly be with political implications, I have a good understanding of and am immune to its charm and dysfunction. So it's just something I talk about from time to time with no agenda. I don't have dogs in those fights. So I guess you could write the end of my blackness was the beginning of the Obama era, because finally America had a bigger Negro it could use for its purposes. I still retain all I ever knew, and I don't have a problem recounting it or explaining anything I ever meant by what I wrote. But my interests and agenda lie elsewhere outside of identity and outside of politics. Around that time, my interest turned back to science fiction, The Long Now and ultimately my Peasant Theory and Martial Education. But it's probably best to read all that here at Cobb and see what you get out of it, if anything. I can't say what my interest in conservatism is either. I know both blackness and conservatism have very large problems in establishing their respective orthodoxies, but there are rabid folks desperately trying to establish some. Ahh those poor, damaged children.

I could go on and talk about my current interest in writing, but there's not much to easily explain. I'm interested in the universality of psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology and I'm interested in how computers might assist people in reconciling their personal philosophies with the history of philosophy and religion. I'm further interested in how religion became philosophy and how politics is not philosophy. Again this is about placing the zeitgeist into a developmental historical context. I'm also interested in Taleb's Incerto and the entire business of risk management, security and decision-making under imperfect conditions. So it likely shocks people that I mock or ignore their passions, for whatever reason it is that they do. Mostly I engage in public fora as a wry stoic and epistemological combatant. I think most people don't know why they think the way they do, and as someone who has 'trangsgressed' a bunch of religions, industries, and political philosophies I'm just the kind of stubborn intransigent to get on their nerves. I mock and defy. I'm an asshole and I know it. But I am polite enough to make people understand that I am challenging their premises. Most people get that. Enough don't that they think they've got me nailed. I doubt it.

Comments

A Brief History of Cobb on the Black Hand Side

Steve Fair, semi-nemesis observes the following:

Cobb since I've known him has always tried to make the case that black people are these emotional sheep who have been indoctrinated to believe that conservatives were primarily greedy selfish racists when they really are saintly paragons of freedom, liberty and free market capitalism. No matter how many times we see conservatives serve the interests of the top 1% at the expense of the average American, or increase the size of government, or engage in nation building on the other side of the world, admit to voter suppression, or demonize people of color, that's his story and he's sticking to it.

If I ever did that, I regret it fully. I have absolutely no interest in saying black people are anything at all. If I ever did, it may be some artifact of my upbringing in the Talented Tenth and my history of 'black leadership'. In 1986, I made it fully clear that I believed that black unity was a myth and that I would no longer support that idea. As such I acknowledged black diversity in every dimension. It was my reading of Drylongso finally in 1993 that compelled me to give up the idea of 'black leadership' itself, at which point I vowed never to second-guess black people or say 'black people should'. I do not. Nobody should ever assume that I have a plan for black people - or consequently that I really truly care who black people are or what they choose to do. My standard byline and bottom line is "Some people find it very difficult to accept that they don't own black people, that includes black people."

So then from that point on, all I had was my own black past, which was (and remains) very ideosyncratic. I'm from a small town called Black, and I moved out a long time ago. Nevertheless, I had retained some interest, in black anti-racist politics. So somewhere around 1997, I made that the focus of my writing, very much in league with the Race Traitor movement. So between 1993 and roughly 2001, I made it a project to develop a singular anti-racist praxis which worked along multicultural lines. Adam Serwer is at that place now. It was during that time that I played Boohab and built Boohab's Factotum and The Race Man's Home Companion.

The last time I paid attention to Reparations, I did so following the Harvard Law professor whose name I do not remember right now. But then I asked the question in economic terms. What happens if Reparations don't happen? I called it 'The Cost of Not'. Then 9/11 happened and everybody everywhere completely stopped talking about Reparations.

Somewhere around 2003, having lived comfortable in the upper middle class nearly a decade, my class prerogatives took over. While I was still interested in anti-racism, it was clear to me that the random racism of American life was a footnote in mine. All of my anti-racism was academic. So I started to think about real political power and question why more black Americans did not seek political leverage on both sides of the aisle, like ordinary rich people do year in and year out. So I became intrigued about the fate of rich and powerful black people and the possibilities of integrating the Republican Party. I started my new blog Cobb. But before that, I got together with some of the sharpest black thinkers online and put together Vision Circle. All of these remain, unedited and in my control. So there's that.

With Cobb, I went on a simple journey into the American Right that turned out to be quite complex. It was deeply enlightening. But blogging as a 'black Republican' grew tiresome after about 3 years. So I quit blogging altogether, and then came back with a new angle. Since I had formed The Conservative Brotherhood, and did some media stuff on NPR and TV One, Cobb the blog became famous. But it was still a persona I created for a specific purpose. That purpose was over pretty much around -- I don't know 2006?. I changed Cobb's subtitle to "curious, skeptical and analytical". And then finally to its present form "stoic observations". The end of my actual political agitation was in 2007 owing to my disgust with identity politics but I had won black blogger of the year that year.

I'm still most famous as Cobb, and that is what it is. What persists from the conservative conversion is an organic defense of Western Civilization from its first principles, something I started around 2005 or 06 when I got into Dan Carlin and Larry Arnn as introduced by Hugh Hewitt. At that moment in my life, history became more interesting than the present. Still I sought to understand what was happening to the liberal left I grew up in and why it seemed so wacky. I finally came to understand the difference between liberals and progressives as well as the travesty of multiculturalism's dysfunctional fueling of identity politics. So I read Orwell to understand why the Left considers itself more moral than the Right.

These days, especially after the crash of 2008 and the re-election of Obama I can't say what my interest in blackness is. I'm agnostic. It isn't a compelling subject for me. I think everything that group identity could possibly be with political implications, I have a good understanding of and am immune to its charm and dysfunction. So it's just something I talk about from time to time with no agenda. I don't have dogs in those fights. So I guess you could write the end of my blackness was the beginning of the Obama era, because finally America had a bigger Negro it could use for its purposes. I still retain all I ever knew, and I don't have a problem recounting it or explaining anything I ever meant by what I wrote. But my interests and agenda lie elsewhere outside of identity and outside of politics. Around that time, my interest turned back to science fiction, The Long Now and ultimately my Peasant Theory and Martial Education. But it's probably best to read all that here at Cobb and see what you get out of it, if anything. I can't say what my interest in conservatism is either. I know both blackness and conservatism have very large problems in establishing their respective orthodoxies, but there are rabid folks desperately trying to establish some. Ahh those poor, damaged children.

I could go on and talk about my current interest in writing, but there's not much to easily explain. I'm interested in the universality of psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology and I'm interested in how computers might assist people in reconciling their personal philosophies with the history of philosophy and religion. I'm further interested in how religion became philosophy and how politics is not philosophy. Again this is about placing the zeitgeist into a developmental historical context. I'm also interested in Taleb's Incerto and the entire business of risk management, security and decision-making under imperfect conditions. So it likely shocks people that I mock or ignore their passions, for whatever reason it is that they do. Mostly I engage in public fora as a wry stoic and epistemological combatant. I think most people don't know why they think the way they do, and as someone who has 'trangsgressed' a bunch of religions, industries, and political philosophies I'm just the kind of stubborn intransigent to get on their nerves. I mock and defy. I'm an asshole and I know it. But I am polite enough to make people understand that I am challenging their premises. Most people get that. Enough don't that they think they've got me nailed. I doubt it.